heavy is the head // babe

[gamemaker kelsier]

b a b e .

"You have walked with your sisters
Seen the tombs where they lie
You are weak but not foolish
You have learned how to die"

”Where will you be when this all ends?”

He wakes with a start in the night and there is a beeping beside his head, steady and rhythmic, it matches his heart. 'beep beep beep,' it tells him and Babe gazes at the monitor because it isn't necessary. He doesn't need to know that he's still alive because he is.

He was there too when his blade slid through September's skull, he felt the give of his flesh and the sudden heaviness on the end of his sword. The moment the other boy's body gave out and dragged his weapon down, Babe slid his blade back out. He stood there, sword dripping dark maroon drops which beaded on the ashy sand. Babe's skin was slick with sweat under the sun as the crowd just sat there, silent, behind on what had just happened. Then the kid who'd cried in the cage, who'd not wanted to hurt him, fell to the hot sand too and the crowd went mental.

Babe had stood there, tongue suddenly heavy and mouth dry. He'd gazed down at the kid and then had finally looked up. The arena wasn't that large. It was easy to just stand there and count all the mutilated bodies of children laying there on the sand. Some stared at nothing, other's eyes were shut. There were limbs just there in the dirt, inches away from their owners or thrown further.

He only had two of their names -he didn't know the rest- but he stood there in the roar of the crowd and knew they'd haunt him anyway.

And it wasn't a prize to survive, it never was, Babe understood that the moment he found himself there alone on the sand. He dropped his sword and it fell to the ash with a thud. September lay in the heap his blow had left him in so Babe knelt down and pulled his body back by the shoulders. He lay September flat beside Xime and then straightened. The crowd was stomping their feet, there was music playing. Peacekeepers were milling out into the arena to surround him and Babe wondered briefly if they were there to execute him.

He wanted to say something to the both of them, Xime had given her life to get him there and September had been the obstacle at the end of his path. Babe just stood there, wordless, gazing, trying to commit both of their faces to memory in the little time that he had to mourn them.

Then there had been a prickling and the sun had set into the sand where his head already lay resting.

”Where will you be when this all ends?”

beep, beep, beep.

In a hospital bed.

There's tape over his cuts in an effort to hold the skin together, but it's not really necessary. Babe knows that he wasn't hurt badly, just often. Sure, he'll have scars but it's just skin in the end. There's no hole in his head, no missing pieces. He's all there, comforter tucked around his legs and wrist cuffed to the bedframe. They wouldn't just leave him with nothing to tether him.

He's still a rebel.

He wonders how quickly they'll kill him when all the publicity is over, if he'll get a day or two to settle and think himself safe before they come for him.

Then he thinks about the train ride home without Ximena, walking through the front door of his house without her and the way that he dug his sword into her the moment she was weak and killed her.

It's night now but he still feels the sun on his skin, hot and burning, it stings against the cool of the bedsheets. There's a glass and a pitcher of water beside him on a bedside table but he'd have to roll over his cuffed wrist to get it and there's no one there to help him.

He's alone again.

[gamemaker kelsier]

b a b e .

"You have battled for ages,
You gave your best try
You are weak but not foolish
You have learned how to die"

”Where will you be when this all ends?”

September's words echo in his head over and over again in a steady rhythm. They've placed a flute of champagne on the table in front of him and it swills within the glass with each small bump in the track. His skin still aches slightly, muscles tired and tight from overexertion but he's alive still.

Nothing has ended, it's only become more.

Babe never got past thinking about survival, he had forgotten about the rest, about the way they paraded you around through the districts after like breathing propaganda. He was expected to smile and wave, to kneel and accept his crown on the steps of each District's Justice Building. His knees were hurting after just four districts and he'd already learned more names than he'd wanted to. After having them, he couldn't lose them though so he scratched their names out on a scrap piece of paper on the train between each district.

Zephyr, Petra, Arcturus, Desdemona, Eros, Juno, Remus and Reign.

They're all the names he has so far. The only one he recognizes is Arcturus, the boy he'd fought first in the arena. They'd promised to meet again so Arcturus could kill him but that had been the last Babe had seen of him. Somehow knowing his name feels empty, like all he's doing is labelling empty jars in a kitchen cabinet. The vessel is empty, the promise is gone.

All that's left is the aftermath, him. He's not a good prize though, Babe knows that in the way the people in each district crowding the square look at him. He's a rebel, a criminal technically but he stands there uncuffed and receiving a circlet of gold for his efforts. He wonders how much of it is stolen, whose family heirlooms he's wearing melted down on his head. He'd heard a rumour that they were even taking golden crowns off people's teeth.

The whole thing is unreal, like an extended dream he just hasn't woken up from yet. Babe still remembers a time before this, before the fences when it was easy to get to another district and his family's guns were still sold for sport, not war.

He doesn't think this is going to end for him, maybe not even for his children or their children. He's fought for so long, believed in the cause for so long, but he'd never expected the complacency.

In Five the crowd stares at him silent, ragged, dead-eyed and dying. No one looks able-bodied or lively. He searches the crowd, wondering if he'll be able to figure out who Appa is just by looking but no one stands out. September's highlights play on a large screen behind him and he hears his own voice comforting the other boy. It doesn't matter though, not any of it, Babe still killed him in the end.

Was he sincere at that moment? He wonders about that but it's hard to think about the arena. It's as if it all happened years ago instead of only a few days. The feelings are there still, the dead-wight of his heart inside of him and the sand everywhere. He'll die dreaming about that sand, even if he somehow makes it to old age.

The video ends and Babe kneels again on marble steps and receives the gold circlet on his head. He'll wear it all the way to the train, waving and smiling, a gun against his side where no one can see it. Then they'll take it from him again and the train will move on to District Six where they'll do all of this again.

It doesn't feel like a victory.

He adds September and Paksenarrion to his list as the train rolls away from Five. As they pass by rolling hills, he swears he sees a boy in the distance, standing alone.

A hole in his head.

"Where will you be when all this ends?" he whispers.